"It's so lame though!"
"B-but...it's the traditions here..."
An argument started between Yuuka and Tresk. Yuuka was the shy and nervous girl whose family was originally from the Johto region. Tresk was also from the Johto region, but far more excitable and obsessed with the idea of what was coming in the next few days. He wanted to take a Pokemon with him from the small island region the group's parents had brought them to, but none of them really made lasting friendships with the Pokemon of the region. The only way to be considered a trainer on the island, is if a partner Pokemon chooses to follow them. Only one Pokemon from the island can be a partner with the human trainer. Since none of them could bring along a Pokemon from the island at the end of the day, they would be heading off from the only place they knew with only their personal belongings to remind them of the place. Having Pokemon which only exist on the island would have been great as well.
Soon, the four trainers whose families were from different regions were called up to the stage to accept their diplomas signifying their graduation from a mostly normal school. A little of the schooling they had was teaching them about Pokemon, but mostly it was for being able to work professions specific to human civilization. It was boring to the boys of the foreign group.
One thing was for sure, they were disappointed they were getting such a late start to becoming trainers when they would be leaving in the next few days with their parents to a region which had recently become popular for having incredible trainers and unique challenges. It wasn't the usual scene like gyms and badges before challenging the elite four or tournament leagues in the regions their parents had come from. Instead, the challenge there was a different kind of tradition. Trainers would challenge a type speciality zone in the region, and then would have to with the same type as the zone. Defeating the zone with Pokemon of the same type would prove the trainer ready to challenge other trainers to become a temporary champion of the type in the region. It was something incredible, to have a champion for every type. Sometimes, champions would gather and battle each other to claim a temporary crown as the region leader. As far as they knew, it was every five years the region held the champion tournaments to decide the region's champion. The whole region was filled to the brim with trainers who dedicated their entire lives to becoming better and they were now widely acclaimed in every other region as the strongest. Their champions have yet to be defeated by the champion of another region. The region champion also had to be skilled in multiple different types so to be able to face the other champions for the frequent challenges.
The region had long been without a name, just a land with dedicated trainers. Now, with demand and popularity, the region has decided to change name with every champion, if the champion deemed to name the region. The current champion of the region was a very excitable person who was originally a champion of fairy type and electric type later. She renamed the region to Taffola. It was...unique at least.
At the end of the ceremony, the students mostly lingered around on the park and fields around the school, while the group of foreign families went to a park closer to their home. One thing even more disappointing than not having Pokemon to take from the region with them, was that not one of the parents went to the graduation ceremony. It wasn't a happy event, but boring and long drawn out. Not one of them were very happy with the graduation. It was mostly a thing for the traditional types of the region, but the group from the foreign families grew up in the region hearing of the intense and crazy stories of their parents journeying their home regions, fighting gym battles and eventually fighting the elite trainers when they collected a minimum of eight badges required to challenge the league.
One girl of the group was just as fascinated as the boys of the idea in becoming a trainer, and at one time she had made temporary friends with a Pokemon of the island. Unfortunately, that friendship lasted as long as it took for the Pokemon to save her. That Pokemon was the ghost sword Pokemon called Honedge. That experience was not only a good memory and the one which inspired her to become a trainer, but it also made her terrified of wild Pokemon. The Grubka bug and plant type Pokemon which ate smaller bugs was about to make her a meal when the Honedge separated it from its roots. That memory, of the terrifying massive mouth with a terrifying amount of sharp and lethal teeth. That memory made her terrified of going to wooded areas on the island without her parents. To the fields where wild Pokemon roamed.
When they arrived at the park nearby their homes, the group looked at each other and smiled.
"At least soon we'll be able to become normal trainers. I wonder if we're too old to get a gift Pokemon from a professor. Those are usually given to kids before they become teenagers. We're adults as of graduation. We might have to rely on our parents to help us catch our first..."
Tresk was blunt about it. He really wanted to be able to take care of himself and prove himself in the new region. Go out with a Pokeball and catch the first cool Pokemon he would see. For the girl who was saved by the Honedge, Naeya, she hoped she could bring the Honedge along with her, to start her journey together with the Pokemon who saved her.
"I'd really like to have my parents bring me to the fields here and find that Honedge..."
"That would be really cool!"
Tresk was optimistic about the idea of her bringing along the Honedge, but Naeya was never social enough with the rest of the group to tell them of the whole situation with the Grubka nearly eating her. She wasn't very social at all, but she wanted to be a little closer. At least to the friends she would make. Closer to her parents. Close to Pokemon she could grow close to.
"Ever got your Dad to teach you about that Pokemon's evolutions? I've heard they're really interesting."
That was the other boy of the group. His family was from Unova. His family had apparently done a lot of travelling before him being born, and they had nearly complete Pokedex. Juez was fond of filling a Pokedex of his own sometime in the future. Yuuka simply wanted to find some nice Pokemon and treat them like family. Although her father was a champion at one time in Johto's past, on relinquishing the position, her parents had become more interested in having a good relationship than focusing on their pasts as trainers.
"Well, let's go see why our parents ditched on the graduation ceremony. Tell them how boring this traditional graduation was."
For them, they were also making a joke about how they were in a way smarter than their parents because they couldn't rely on their parents to help them with school work. The only thing most trainers outside of the small island region the graduates were raised on knew about was how to battle and properly raise Pokemon for battles. Their parents didn't know much about maths and the depth of language. Only Juez' parents were well versed in geography and the lay of the world, and Naeya's parents were...well, they surprised the whole group with a fondness for history. Especially given that her father had an Aegislash, the apparent final evolution of Honedge. That Pokemon family was very tied in with history, especially the era of the great war. Before the war, that Pokemon family didn't exist. It meant that the Pokemon was born from conflict, but that only made Naeya's attachment to Honedge and her father's Aegislash that much more precious.
The group split up after confirming they would bring their parents to the park and all celebrate the graduation together. Naeya was particularly excited to learn more about Pokemon after the long and boring graduation ceremony. She hopped along toward her family's home, but when the building was in sight around the corner of another house which separated her home from the park of the residential quarter of the island, there were two tall adults in black robes walking away toward the port from the house. She wondered if those kind of people were on business with the parents and that was why they didn't make it to graduation.
After a shrug from seeing the robed mysterious people walk away, she continued on to the house, and she was a little disappointed that the guests hadn't closed the door. Another shrug, and she walked inside, removed her shoes and went to her room quickly to change out of the graduation robe into something more comfortable. Something bothered her while she was changing though. Her parents definitely would have heard her enter the house, and Aegislash had a habit of almost always being out of its Pokeball and watching over her when they were in the house together. It was impossible not to hear each other in the house with how thin the walls were, so she wondered why they weren't asking her about the graduation yet, why they hadn't given notice they knew she was home.
Just as she turned to head out of her room, she could smell the most unsettling scent she could imagine for the time. Even Aegislash didn't smell of iron so much, but she definitely smelled something like the smithy or the butcher through the rest of the house. When she went down the stairs to the large room where her parents sometimes battled their Pokemon, the source of the heavy smell which only made her more nauseous, she almost wanted to run back up to the washroom and put on a mask to tell them just how bad the smell was. Something in her mind told her to keep walking down the stairs though. The lights were on, which was a sign they were there, but the bottom steps of the stairs were always cloaked in shadow because of the layout of the building. She couldn't see the bottom two steps, and when her left foot reached the second last step and slipped on something wet, she reached out frantically and grabbed the railing. She steadied herself and pulled out her phone and activated the light of the itemfinder application. She instantly regretted shining light on what she saw, because it only showed her a prequel of what else waited in the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, blood and the tail of her mother's Meowstic were messily strewn.
Naeya covered her mouth, holding back a scream and the holding back the feeling that her body wanted to vomit. She finished traversing down the last steps and rounded the corner of the stairway into the large battle room of the basement only to see everyone she considered family in pieces all over the place. Blood was everywhere. She couldn't hold back from vomiting anymore. She cried and screamed and...the cloth of Aegislash's blade sash reached up weakly toward her the same way it did when she needed something to dry her hands. She reached out and gently grabbed hold, hoping that despite...despite how badly it was harmed, it would live through what happened.
When the vomit stopped and she was heaving short of breath, she was reminded of the black robed people leaving the house as she arrived who left the door open. They did it. They hurt her family. They killed her entire family.
It hurt to move, but when the life in Aegislash's sash went limp she charged up the stairs with all her strength only to find the rest of her friends at the door with tears streaming down their faces. Covered in blood. It must have been the same for their families.
Why?!
That was the thought in her mind, but there was no way to know the answer. The only clue they had, was that it was only their parents since everyone else on the island showed up to the graduation ceremony. What did they all have in common? They temporarily retired from being trainers to raise the children until they were ready to become trainers themselves. It wouldn't be long before the children would be ready. In fact, the plan was to leave soon after graduation to the currently named Taffola region.
Naeya grabbed tight hold of Yuuka's hand and pulled her along toward the port before she was pulled back.
"Why are you stopping me?! We have to find out where the black robed people went! We have to stop them and have them punished for this!"
Naeya's strength returned to her. She let go of Yuuka's hand and ran off on her own to the port. While the others stood nearly motionless, filled with the despair of the losses they suffered, she ran to find out what she could. She knew it was dangerous, but there were always guard Metang on duty watching the port. They could protect her if those black robed men tried anything on her.
Just as she crossed the last side road onto the main pier of the port, she saw a large ship leaving. On the deck, those black robed people were looking on the island. Apparently the parents were their purpose for coming to the island. She ran over to the Metang which was just closing the gate for the ship which departed.
"Where is that ship heading?!"
Metang touched its claws to the terminal at its gate and human language came out.
"That departure was to the currently named Taffola region. Please attend your appearance."
She ignored the part about it mentioning her appearance. She turned around and ran back to the rest of her group of friends. When she got there, she was totally out of breath. However, she did get out words she intended to say.
"They left for Taffola. Let's clean up and get ready to leave for there on the night cruise."
"P-please stop this Naeya...! Going after them is way too reckless! They...they..."
The boys seemed to catch onto her intention, and theirs matched hers. Their eyes were filled with something unexpected. It wasn't the fear and pain anymore. It also wasn't the warning off Yuuka had in her expression. Their expressions were filled with anger. And thirst for vengeance. While Naeya wanted her family avenged, she more intended to have them punished by the right people. By authorities. By Pokemon the same as were killed by those people.
She turned and walked into her home, so that she could get ready to leave with the others. The people of the island would be happy for the outsiders to finally be gone. While it was despicable, their authorities didn't care about anything regarding the foreign students or parents. They wouldn't do anything about their parents.
After getting cleaned and changed, when she met with Yuuka again at the park, she had something to say.
"We should...bring our families with us. To...bury them. They won't have peace here."
Yuuka started crying again. Naeya grabbed her in a hug, and when Tresk and Juez returned to the park with their bags, she let go of Yuuka and turned her attention on them. She told them the same she told Yuuka. At first, they gave her a questioning look, but her expression told them she was serious, and they might have realized what kind of treatment their families would get. None of them could leave their families to be treated badly by the island locals.
The group worked together and had everything ready for the night cruise. When they boarded, Naeya felt as if someone was watching her. Nobody on the ship knew of a stowaway.